


O Captain, No Captain, No Captain without Her Crew

by theorangewitch



Series: Angstober [14]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, failure - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 19:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: When she asked herself why she had yet to share the story of The Albatross’ sinking, she knew that it was because she was ashamed. And when she wondered whether or not she would share the story eventually, she knew that the answer was yes, because it was eating her alive.Now seemed an apt enough time.





	O Captain, No Captain, No Captain without Her Crew

**Author's Note:**

> Day 17 - Personal Failure. Asherah never gets any rest. 
> 
> As usual, the link to the full list of prompts is in the author’s note of the first work in this series.

As summer turned to fall, the air went dry, and Asherah missed the sea more than ever. On an unusually cold night in the middle of a forest, she, Nadim, Storg, and Davi huddled around a modest fire. Storg had been teaching Nadim how to build fires, but Nadim wasn’t very good at it yet. This one was better than last night’s, though, which had burned for less than an hour. 

Asherah shucked off her gloves and held her palms up to the fire, wishing for once that she wasn’t resistant to its heat. 

“Asherah, can I ask you something?” Nadim said. They’d known each other for long enough now that she knew that he was about to say something stupid.

“No,” she said. 

But he pressed on, because of course he did. “Who are you looking for?”

“I told you. My first mate, Miriai. And the rest of my crew.”

“But who was-- _ is _ she to you?”

Asherah sighed, staring into the dancing flames. He’d asked this before, but she hadn’t yet shared what happened with the group. “My fianceé.” The fire crackled, burying her words in the wood that was quickly turning to ash. “I proposed to her on the night our ship sank.”

Davi’s mouth fell open, her eyebrows knitting together. “Asherah, that’s awful!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

Davi was so innocent and kind, and Asherah’s heart melted at her words. When she asked herself why she had yet to share the story of  _ The Albatross’  _ sinking, she knew that it was because she was ashamed. And when she wondered whether or not she would share the story eventually, she knew that the answer was yes, because it was eating her alive. 

Now seemed an apt enough time. “As Nadim already knows, my ship,  _ The Albatross _ , was a privateer vessel. It was small and fast enough to hunt down the equally small and fast pirate vessels that haunt the Sword Coast. Military ships are too big and slow to do that. So cities would hire us to take care of their pirate problems. And we’d get a cut of whatever loot we found on board. It was a pretty good gig. But sometimes we would be hired to to take care of other things. Other things that caused problems for vessels.”

“Like what?” Davi asked. 

“Like an island being tormented by a necromancer. Or close a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water. Or spear an unusually large, unusually aggressive whale.” Asherah shrugged. “It was mostly pirates, though. But then there was this job. We were stopped on the Moonshae Isles, and a merchant in Rogarsheim was complaining about something delaying his shipments from Ruathym. That there was something scaring sailors somewhere between the Northlander Isles and Moonshae. Sailors are pretty superstitious, so I didn’t think too much of it, but I agreed to go check it out.”

“Superstition is useful sometimes,” Storg grunted. He was a man of few words, but what he had to say was often wiser than his appearance would convey.

“And of course, this trip coincided with when I was planning on proposing to Miriai.” Asherah pulled the ring off of her left hand. “This is my ring,” she said. It was a simple silver band, engraved with images of the ocean waves. “It was the first thing I bought with my own money. And I used it to propose to Miriai. We were on the crow’s nest, on watch together. And I pulled it off my finger, handed it to her, and asked her to marry me.”

“And? What did she say?” Davi asked.

“‘Damnit’,” Asherah said, chuckling softly. “Because I’d beaten her to the proposal.”

“That’s so sweet I might die,” Nadim said, staring into the dying embers of the fire.

“The next day the Serpent came,” Asherah continued, her heart sinking as she launched into the next portion of the story. “We’d been on the water for a couple of weeks by then, and we were beginning to think that there was nothing out there. But morning came, and it jumped out of the water and launched its attack.

“It was going badly from the start. The Serpent was huge, and none of us were equipped to fight anything that big. We could just barely hold our own, and the Serpent was tearing holes in  _ The Albatross _ ’ hull big enough for a horse to leap through. I took a chance…” Asherah trailed off, losing herself in the memory. The big blue sky, the even bluer ocean, thrashed into foam by the Serpent’s coiling. Delia screaming. Violetta shouting orders on the main deck, trying to get the crew in order as  _ The Albatross  _ took on water. 

Nadim reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Asherah,” he said.

She cleared her throat and continued. “I took a chance. I climbed the main mast and drew my swords. Then I attempted to jump onto its head and stab out its eyes. But it was too fast. It whipped out of the way and I hit the side of its neck. I got knocked out. The next thing I knew I was in a dinghy all alone with the ring I’d given to Miriai back on my finger.” She dragged a hand down her face.

“Asherah, I’m—“ Nadim began, but she cut him off.

“I don’t want your pity, Nadim,” she snapped. “This is my burden to bear. A captain is supposed to protect her crew. And I didn’t. And now I have to tally the damage that was done.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t miss my ex-girlfriend, but I do miss playing D&D with her. Nadim is her character, Storg is her (sort of) dad’s character, and Davi is my sister’s character.


End file.
